“There is the person you are at weekends and on Facebook, and the person you are in the office on Monday,” says online reputation expert Nick Davies from reputationstation.com.au. “Often the two just don’t gel.”

With employers and recruiters increasingly turning to online research to find candidates, making sure your online reputation gives the right impression is becoming essential.

Client Development Manager Digital for Firebrand Talent Chris Elson says it really depends what sort of position you are going for.

“It’s all in relation to the brief we have,” Elson says. “If we are recruiting for an account manager for an ad agency, and their Facebook pages show them having a good time on holiday with friends, you can gauge a cultural fit.

“If we are looking for a CEO and you see Google pages or Facebook posts that compromise their professional image, it’s another story.

“Instead, you want to see white papers and interviews with them to show their reputation.”

A moment of poor judgment, however, such as tweeting how much you hate the products you are selling or posting derogatory comments on Facebook about your employer, can live online forever.

“Stories like those are very likely to have been reported in the news,” says Elson. “Which means they will come up when a recruiter Googles. If I were to see something about someone like that, I’d just steer clear.”

Davies’ agrees: “The important thing to remember is that things you have done in the past can come back to haunt you. There is a lot of information you can’t remove from the internet, so prevention is always the best cure.”

Here is useful advice on keeping it clean...

GOOGLE – beat the engineProblem: If your name is Googled, information about a past misdemeanour pops up in the first page, or, Googling your name comes up with another “John Smith” leaving the first mention of the real you languishing on page five of the search engine results, where no recruiter or employer will ever look.Solution: You need to create enough content about you to rank higher in results through a blog, social media profiles, a website and actively commenting and appearing in forums and other sites. Best advice: “You have to concentrate on what you do,” says Davies’. “You can’t remove other pages, so you have to outrank them. The only real power you have is to take the power – and ranking – away from the other page with positive content about you.”

DOMAIN NAME – be the master of your domainsProblem: The .com.au domain for your name has been snapped up by your Google twin.Solution: You can register the other versions such as .net.au or .com, or use a middle name or initial and get a .com.au. You can also add something descriptive, for example, johnsmiththemechanic.Best advice: “One tactic is to use the word ‘official’, so the domain becomes theofficial johnsmith,” says Davies, as it gives weight to your image and provides you with a unique domain.

FACEBOOK – keep your friends close, and your frenemies not so closeProblem: You’ve lost track of what the public can or can’t see about you on your own page and on other people’s pages.Solution: Delete or hide any images or posts that may not exactly back up your squeaky clean reputation, check your privacy settings and make sure your page isn’t open to the public and that only close friends can see what you are doing. Even then, think twice about what you post.Best advice: “Beware of ‘frenemies’, people who are on your friends list but don’t have your best interests at heart,” says Davies.

TWITTER – avoid a twitch huntProblem: You tweet faster than you can think, as in the case of the 10,000 Twitter re-tweeters that a UK politician is now intending to sue.Solution: Don’t jump on any old Twitter bandwagon before you know all of the facts, libel laws still apply in the Twittersphere...Best advice: “Don’t fan the flames of anything, focus positive stuff about you,” Davies warns.

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